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KAZAN, Russia – Stanford fencers Vivian Kong and Alexander Massialas competed at the Senior World Championships in Kazan, Russia over the last two weeks.

Kong represented her home nation of Hong Kong in strong fashion. The rising junior at Stanford started things off by winning three of her five matches in pool play to advance into the bracket of 128.

Despite being seeded 68th, Kong would go on an impressive run. She started with a 15-11 win over Alexandra Avena of Mexico in the round of 68. She trailed 11-9 before recording six straight touches to advance.

In the round of 32, Kong edged out Imke Duplitzer of Germany, 15-13, in a match she led throughout to set up a battle against No. 4 Yujie Sun of China. In the round of 16, Sun led by as many as three touches at 7-4, but in the end it was Kong coming out on top, 14-13.

The quarterfinals match was against Yana Shemyakina of Ukraine. She was a fencer who used the clock, winning her previous bout 6-4. The scoring was a little higher in the match with Kong, but still to her advantage as she pulled out a 9-8 victory to eliminate Kong.

In the team competition, Kong and her Hong Kong teammates placed 15th overall. She closed out a round of 64 victory over Chinese Tapei with a 6-4 win over Ya Wen Cheng. Honk Kong then ran into No. 1 Russia, the host country, in the round of 32. Despite a 7-5 win from Kong early on, her team would lose 45-28. They then lost to France, 45-32, in the repechage.

Rising junior Alex Massialas finished 19th in the senior men’s foil. He suffered a 15-8 loss to Vincent Simon of France in the round of 32. In his round of 64 contest, Massialas knocked out Maximillien Van Haaster of Canada by a 15-8 total.

Massialas also helped the USA Men’s Foil team to a fifth place finish in the team competition. He won 5-1 against Aliaksandr Lukashevich and Aliaksandr Chaliankov to help the U.S. defeat Belarus 45-31 in the round of 16. The Americans than fell to China, 45-41, in the quarterfinals despite a 5-3 win for Massialas against Jianfei Ma, who lost in the championship match of the individual competition.